


Saudade

by bonelines, howlscastle



Category: Hannibal (TV), The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Genre: #ItsStillBeautiful, Anal Sex, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hannibal is incarcerated again, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Silence of the Lambs References, Threesome - F/M/M, not for the entire fic, the prologue is purely Hannigram, very slight SOTL alterations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:49:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonelines/pseuds/bonelines, https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlscastle/pseuds/howlscastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal and Will have time to consummate their love, before their fight with the Dragon and their inevitable dive off the cliff. From there, they're torn apart when Hannibal is caught and incarcerated again, forcing Will to run and let the world believe him to be dead.</p><p>Later, Will has been living alone in the ache of Hannibal's absence, when agent Clarice Starling shows up on his doorstep to ask for help with the Buffalo Bill case. And she's been sent by Hannibal.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **  
>  **   
>  _saudade (n.)- a nostalgic longing for something or someone that was loved and then lost, with the knowledge that it or they may never return; "the love that remains"_   
>    
>  **This isn't beta-read, so all mistakes belong to us!**   
>  **This chapter is technically a prologue, taking place during s03e13. It's long, but it was necessary. After this, everything jumps forward and takes place during the SOTL timeline - during which, Hannibal is incarcerated. But don't worry, we don't intend to keep him there!**   
>  **Enjoy!**

It had felt like days, weeks, even years that Will had occupied passenger’s side of the cop-car as Hannibal drove them down the vast spine of the road, cutting a long and winding path through an endless array of trees. The whir of the wheels over the asphalt below had brought them ever-closer to their destination…  _ nowhere _ . Will had swallowed hard, knowing far too well what was to come— and what wasn’t.

And he’d been quiet, allowing his eyes to remain trained out the window to watch the world as it flew by them in great, smooth leaps. He can recall a moment to memory when they’d been very much like this before. Driving together towards Minnesota, the quiet of the ride being enough to lull Will into a peaceful sleep while Hannibal drove them onward, the cannibal’s cool darkness encasing and cradling Will’s tired psyche from the world.

It had felt the same, in many ways, while feeling very different as well.

Any confusion or fear that Will had felt in their past is an entirely separate sense of confusion and fear that he feels now. Now, Will is able to understand the man behind the steering wheel, more than he ever has. And as for himself? Will has never had this level of self-understanding before now either. 

Hannibal’s gaze had never wavered from the road and his hands never shifted from where they were on the steering wheel. The tendons and bones had been marked in sharp lines under prison-pale skin, sliding and skipping with each turn and bump in the road. If it hadn’t been for the occasional blink, one might have thought a statue had been placed behind the wheel, so resolute and cool.

Will doesn’t linger once they arrive at their destination. He doesn’t ask questions - not yet. For now, he simply waits until Hannibal shifts the vehicle into park and then cranes his neck to the side for the briefest of moments, if only to catch the other man’s eyes for the mere passing of a second, before Will finally pushes open the car door and exits out of it. 

In answer, Hannibal offers a slow nod and warm smile. No veil now.

The roar of the Atlantic as it crashes against the cliff side rises up like the swimming, aching notes of a theremin - like white noise with a voice. As Will follows to the front door and through the entrance of the house, he wonders if Hannibal had taken the song of the ocean into account when he’d chosen this place.

Of course he had— not even the smallest detail is ever lost on the man.

“Even your homes-away-from-home are undeniably… you,” Will says finally, an almost-there edge of humor to the tone of his voice. He reaches out and takes the corner of a sheet of plastic in-hand, only to tug it away from where it covers the dining table. 

A pause, before Will continues, his voice reflective and he seems to mull over his own thoughts as he passes fingertips over the top of the table. No dust— the plastic had made sure of that. 

“Care put into the smallest details - even those that you hardly got much a chance to see.”

Hannibal strolls back into the lounge as he slowly hooks a finger over the collar of his prison suit and works it open enough to swallow in a breath of new-found freedom. All the while, his gaze never leaves Will. Whilst his memory palace is decorated in vivid portraits of the man, echoing down the halls in both vivid color and sound, the cannibal still feasts upon the sight of Will as though he were a starving man presented with a king’s feast.

And, perhaps Hannibal was.

Although far from what Hannibal would consider becoming, the grey, shapeless cloth hangs off of him as elegantly as any designer suit. His broad shoulders ensure the starched material tugs in at the waist, showcasing the brawn of his chest and the angle of his hips, before falling away to cut severe lines down the length of his powerful legs. 

A breath, a beat, a heartbeat, and silent footfalls bring him closer to Will - nearly close enough that his breath glances hot over the back of the profiler’s neck. 

“Time and distance are rarely an obstacle when it comes to maintaining care over things which are...” Hannibal brushes a stray curl away from the nape of Will’s neck, “mine.” 

The last word pets over Will’s flesh with a deep, resonant tone, drawing up chills that dance in a line to follow the path of fingertips brushing over his flesh. It’s a warm, aching unsurety that settles into the pit of his stomach and causes Will to draw away from the touch and away from the ghost of Hannibal’s breath from behind him. Though Will has chosen to be here and has chosen many other unspoken things already, doubt is a thick and stormy cloud that hangs overhead. It will not release him.

Each step that Will takes and each decision that falls into place in his mind now is all a piece that, ultimately, adds up to his becoming. He had decided to get into the police car alongside Hannibal and he had decided to enter this safe house of sorts, keeping them tucked away from anyone else.

Well, that is, until the Dragon finally decides to emerge from the shadows.

And even for all that Will has decided upon already, and for all of the things he is sure he  _ will _ do, it is still deeply jarring to have Hannibal so close now.

Somehow, knowing that he is on a suicide mission is something far easier for Will to digest, than trying to make sense of this strange intimacy he feels. An intimacy that he has  _ always  _ felt, really, between himself and Hannibal. It’s as though whatever it is that connects them, calls out whenever one steps into the other’s orbit. 

Will has come to terms with his own darkness enough to see that there is no hope in fighting it. He has also come to terms with Hannibal’s darkness as well. The only thing Will has yet to entirely work himself through is what that might mean for the both of them.

Putting enough distance between to keep just barely out of reach, Will pivots on the heel of his shoes and throws Hannibal a pointed glance, brows raising and eyes blinking. Dark humor still paints the edges of his tone when the profiler speaks next.

“And when you don’t have a choice? When the things that are yours are taken from you— then what?” he asks, not to be condescending, but to try and gauge what Hannibal’s plan might be from here. Will can’t help but wonder what the man might think would be in store for himself next. 

“It’s only a matter of time before Dolarhyde shows up for his own becoming. The police shortly after. How many other cliff side houses do you have lined up for yourself, Hannibal?”

Hannibal doesn’t move from where he stands, head canted and lips parted _ just so _ . He is more than aware of the kind of mission Will is on here. 

Just over the younger man’s shoulder, Hannibal can see the vast expanse of the ocean and the faint, misty line of the horizon where water disappears into the sky. Blue into blue. A visage of eternity, but far from it, just the same. Even so, it’s an idea that’s easy enough to believe in - to the untrained eye, or even the trained eye - if the motivation is right.

“Strange, the actions we see ourselves taking - almost as if at a distance - when we believe we no longer have  _ choice _ . We become shadows played out on cave walls whilst the reality stays cold, vast, and desolate… far beyond our reach, but still crushingly present.” Hannibal closes his eyes, inhaling sharply - basking in the scent of Will and ensuring that Dolarhyde wasn’t close, yet. 

If he stays true to the Dragon’s form, they’d have until sundown, at least. 

“The human mind has no ability to grasp the concept of eternity, and yet we are governed by it. We ache for it and are terrified of it.” Hannibal continues, taking a step closer to Will then— heel to toe. And then another.  _ Heel to toe _ . Each step is just as silent at the last. “All of our morality both spins around and gravitates towards the linchpin of eternity. It’s a concept that is here one minute and gone the next. Or so we think, once the necessary insanity of grief sets in.”

Hannibal rolls his head to the side as he reaches out and ghosts a touch down the front of Will’s throat, tracing the line of his jugular and over the pulse of blood behind flesh. The profiler stiffens under the press of it, but doesn’t retreat this time. Maybe it’s curiosity for what might come next, or maybe it’s a very real and undeniable want for that nearness.

Will can’t help but feel a quiet sense of dread for either of the options. He only has a second to dwell on it, however, before Hannibal goes on.

“Perhaps there are infinite cliffs and infinite houses. Perhaps I shall see them all now, in this moment. Or, perhaps, I shall see none at all. It’s one thing to play with parallels and hypotheticals, and another to wade through the present moment, abstracting it beyond meaning.”

Hannibal’s hand comes to rest around the side collar of Will’s shirt, before adding finally, “Tell me, Will, what will you grieve in your infinite cliff side houses, once this moment passes?”

It’s a question that shakes Will to his core, only amplified by the weight of Hannibal’s hand that rests just shy of the younger man’s shoulder, cradled at the collar of his shirt. If Will focuses hard enough on the touch, he can almost feel the warm brush of Hannibal’s thumb against his throat, but it’s in the distance and hardly-there, like white-noise on a television screen.

For all the things that Will grieves, it is always for opportunities lost. He has grieved for things that might have been and could have been, had he made different choices.

Will has grieved for Abigail. He’s grieved for Molly and he’s grieved for Walter. Will has grieved for himself. And, oh yes, Will has even grieved for Hannibal. When the actions that Will has taken, based upon his ever-confused sense of morality, has changed the path laid out in front of those in his life, it’s then that Will has grieved.

When he looks back and knows he could have made a different choice.

Should-haves. Could-haves. Would-haves. All hypothetical and all a heavy burden, like rocks in the basin of Will’s heart.

A thick swallow and the profiler steels himself then, eyes lifted and locked onto the man who stands before him - mirroring him, just as Hannibal always had. 

Will can think of so many moments where he has questioned himself and also questioned Hannibal. Moments where there has been a question surrounding the both of them entirely. It’s question, upon question, upon question that motivates Will to grasp for  _ action _ now. 

He doesn’t want Hannibal to continue to be a should-have.

And so, just as Will knows that he is going to test so many other things over the course of the night, he knows that this particular test is equally as important. Just as he knows he must question where his mind belongs, Will must also question where his heart belongs, and why he feels it tighten in his chest at the thought of separation between them once again.

“Kiss me.” It’s deliberate and without question when Will finally says it, licking his lips with a quick pass of his tongue, before allowing them to part on a hitched exhale. “I would only grieve an opportunity lost— an opportunity to answer any question I had, surrounding myself… and you.”

A hard blink and Will swallows thickly, unable to stop his gaze from falling away from Hannibal’s eyes to trace over the curve of the man’s mouth - to picture what it might feel like pressed against his own. This fire that surrounds them through both spirit and body— Will can’t deny it, just as he cannot deny the darkest part of himself. And so, he only seeks to answer this particular question, through action this time.

“Please, kiss me.”

Will doesn’t need to ask a second time, but regardless, it’s a wondrous delight for Hannibal to hear the words tumble forth again and wrap their long, tendrils of want around his spine, luring him another step closer.

Despite Hannibal’s desire to lunge forward and consume, he savors this space of anticipation - especially as this one taste may be all he has the chance to experience of his  _ beloved _ . While his gaze fixates on the curve of Will’s lower lip, Hannibal’s hand slips up into the empath’s hair, fingers toying with dark, silken curls. His other hand echoes the same sweeping action up the other side of Will’s neck and stops to cradle the base of his skull. 

And when Will cannot help but shiver under the taller man’s ministrations, Hannibal’s face lights up with the ghost of a smile, his cat-like eyes crinkling at the corners, pupils blowing wide with lust.

Will exhales the briefest semblance of an encouragement as his head is drawn back to center and Hannibal finally lets his gaze drift up to meet sea-blue, the rest of the world all but faded out. The ocean’s roar, the call of birds, the cliff side house, the heated air between, and the silent eternity that swims around every breath they share simply falls away. 

With Will’s cheekbones held firmly between his thumbs, Hannibal uses this leverage to tilt Will’s head back and drag him closer so that they are pressed chest-to-chest. Finally, with amber eyes closed, the cannibal cants his jaw to the side and leans in to press his lips against Will’s, mouths fitting together perfectly.

Two halves of a whole.

As first, it’s a simple, soft kiss that’s offered with a sigh into the warm space between. But soon, it’s enough to cause a swell of hunger that thrums under Hannibal’s skin to the point of an ache, his hands gripping either side of Will’s head tighter, murmuring against his lips, “Ask me for more.”

With that, Hannibal looks down towards the other man and feels his entire chest rock with the heavy beat of his own heart, before it stops as though it were on the edge of a precipice. His whole being is left frozen in waiting for the profiler to give the lion permission to lunge.

And Will wants it.  _ More _ . The idea of it both terrifies him and entices him.

Will stands, staring back into the belly of the beast - into the eyes of the man who had crafted him into what he is today. Today, Will is someone far more sure of himself. Today, Will is someone who is able to understand his own darkness just a little bit more, and is then able to watch it reflected back in the surface of Hannibal’s gaze.

Will can feel the absence of Hannibal’s mouth against his own when they separate, and he’s more than slightly surprised by how much he misses the press of it. Surely,  _ that _ is something that should scare him more than it does? 

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, before Will reaches out and tentatively places each of his palms against the front of Hannibal’s chest. Fingertips press in to make their presence known from the other side of the barrier of the prison jumpsuit that the man wears. Eyes flitting downward and brows knitted into a furrow to betray just how unsure he is in himself now, Will allows for his hands to sweep upward anyway - dancing his touch towards its destination, to place either of his palms over Hannibal’s shoulders. 

And while the statuesque man remains nearly unmoved, the slight turn of his jaw and the hard swallow that follows reveal just how deeply these light touches have penetrated.

So near and watched so closely under Hannibal’s eyes, Will feels dissected. Delightfully and thrillingly dissected.

Finally, when fingers dig into the taller man’s shoulders and pull just enough to encourage him closer, Will’s voice breaks the silence again, jaw tilted up and gaze lifting as his mouth seeks out the other man’s in a parted sweetness.

“More, Hannibal,” he starts, the ghost of his words laying themselves warm against Hannibal’s mouth, drawing up a violent shudder from the cannibal. Still, Will is unsure and testing the waters, but only out of nervousness, no longer unsure in the man that stands before him. Will has been given his answer. “Again. Kiss me again.”

And now? All thoughts have flown from Will’s mind aside from feeling  _ more _ .

Hannibal’s eyes close in sync with the parting of his own lips, welcoming  _ more _ as he crushes his mouth to Will’s and swipes tongue over his lips - a simple question of permission. The profiler sinks against him and parts his mouth further, offering up that sweet taste on a quivering sigh as Hannibal slides hands up to cradle Will’s face. Permission granted, tongue delves deep into the hot cavern of his mouth, licking over and drinking down the taste. 

A moan crawls up and into the warm space between their kiss, unsure from whom it had originated from - both are so close now - unable to tell where one begins and the other ends. And Hannibal takes over Will’s mouth completely, hands holding his features, the press of the cannibal’s thumbs force his jaws apart to grant full access.

Will feels no desire to draw away and he does not deny any of the guidance Hannibal provides in this. Unsure at first, in himself and in his place beside the other man - and in what being beside a known-cannibal at all would mean - Will starts to feel confidence well up from somewhere unknown. He doesn’t need to understand  _ why _ to recognize that he does, indeed, want more.

In a motion that is much less tentative than those previous to it, Will slips both hands up either side of Hannibal’s neck to wind fingers into the man’s flaxen hair, grazing pearly incisors over his lower lip.

A low growl hovers in the barrel of Hannibal’s chest and his pulse picks up to a thundering rate. It’s near-deafening as Hannibal slowly angles his head the other way, keeping Will’s face firmly in place as the larger man’s tongue sweeps across the curve of his teeth. 

Their tongues slide back and forth in equal tides of passion and heaving breaths when Hannibal drops one hand to Will’s collarbone to undo one button of his shirt, before moving to the next. Exposing just enough flesh for Hannibal to dip and lick a hot line across the sharp crests of bone there, he leaves behind a glistening streak that the cannibal cannot tear his gaze from when he straightens himself again, speaking in breathy, dulcet tones. 

“Ask me for more. Ask me for  _ everything _ .”

Where Hannibal’s other hand had been resting against Will’s cheek, it too drops so as to snake an arm around the profiler’s narrow waist and pull him in tight, hips clashing together as lust starts to boil over and brings the line of Hannibal’s arousal to press in against the shallow dip of Will’s groin.

A moan is given in answer, less restrained and far quicker to show just how eager Will feels. The heat of his lust is consuming him at an undeniable rate as years of tension and darkness and foolish games all fall into this one moment in time. It’s pivotal to both men and entirely pregnant with the possibilities that it lays out before them.

They were always bound to end up here - through teacups and time and all of the disorder.

Hannibal’s human veil is quickly falling away and all the genteel mannerisms with it. Such is that violent streak, always ready to wield an ice pick - it is also ready to ruin the object of its desire at any given moment.

And Will has to ask himself what gain he might come to find if he were to hold himself back now. Surely none, as he is fairly sure that he couldn’t hold himself back even if he wanted to. 

But to ask for  _ everything _ ? Is Will completely certain that he wants everything?

The answer is no - there’s nothing he’s certain of when he moans again into their kiss and speaks his answer there, written in blood and breath and years of misunderstood desire.

“Y—eah... everything,” Will starts, breaking their kiss as one hand dips to undo the second button of Hannibal’s prison jumpsuit, fingertips fumbling and a sigh trembling past the profiler’s lips. 

Eyes only connect with the other man’s briefly, before they drop down to watch the place where their hips press together, brows furrowed and face flushed as his forehead brushes against Hannibal’s jaw. Will is just as hard and aching behind the front of his pants, the swollen line of his cock slotted against Hannibal’s and only separated by a few layers of clothing.

Oh yes,  _ more _ is starting to sounds better by the minute.

Gaze is brought back up, a tremor seemingly passing over Will and through Hannibal as the profiler then directs his mouth to litter grazed, unorganized kisses over the taller man’s jawline, leading them to his mouth.

“I want all of it, Hannibal— please.”

Hannibal’s head rolls slightly to the side, allowing Will to explore and taste and plead for more. For  _ everything _ . Bright, burning, and hot. It sets every one of Hannibal’s nerves alight with a flame that has simmered silently for so, so many years.

As nimble fingers start to undress him and as Will turns his gaze down to take in the sight of their brushing arousals, Hannibal is more than charmed with Will’s almost-innocence in this particular scenario between them. Even more, Hannibal is charmed with the idea of taking that innocence and hesitancy away from the other man. 

With one arm tight around Will’s middle and the other rising to push a hand up into chocolate brown hair, Hannibal eats the  _ please _ right off Will’s lips with a ravishing kiss. Inhaling sharply so he doesn’t have to break their connection, the taller man starts to walk Will back through the house and to the bedroom.

Thighs and knees knock into one another almost clumsily as Hannibal powers them through the house with long, purposeful strides, not giving Will time to think of what is transpiring, or where he is being led to. And Will moves blindly, devouring Hannibal’s mouth with his own as the man directs them down the hallway. The breadth of Hannibal’s frame dominates the profiler, bulky shoulders rounding over Will as the wall of Hannibal’s muscled torso pushes them both through the threshold of the bedroom.

It’s only a few more strides from there to the bed, before Hannibal promptly lays Will out underneath him and, only then, breaks their kiss to look over his boy, lying out, prone against the blankets. 

A sight to etch into memory.

Will allows his back to melt into the sheets below, the blades of his shoulders digging in as he reaches out and makes to put his hands on the man that looms above— to perhaps encourage Hannibal to let the mask fall further and release that which was more  _ animal _ .

Long and powerful fingers stop Will, wrapping securely over each of his wrists, before Hannibal stretches to lift one arm and then the other in the effort to leave both of the younger man’s hands above his head. The arch of Hannibal’s brow that quickly follows indicates an unspoken order for Will to stay put, just as he is.

A low, barely-there sound of an almost nervous kind of impatience is huffed past Will’s nostrils, flaring in the wake of the exhale, but he stays exactly as he is left.

With tender and stroking motions, Hannibal works to undo and peel away Will’s shirt, revealing the smooth canvas of his chest. He arches slightly into each graze of Hannibal’s fingertips along the way each time they happen to dance against heated flesh. Will’s pearly teeth dig into the curve of his own lower lip, as though he were fighting against his own resolve. 

A hum of satisfaction hovers in the cannibal’s throat as he scatters kisses over the warm and newly-exposed skin, before uttering a low, “Perfect.”

Shuddering, Will has to swallow thickly to choke down the moan that almost escapes.

Hannibal slips down the length of Will’s body from there, only to sink down and kneel at Will’s feet where they hang over the edge of the bed. The cannibal is just as careful and clinical in this as he is with all things, removing Will’s shoes and socks to graze long fingers against the arched bed of his foot, to up and across the fan of bones lined over the top. It’s a slow and devoted kind of reverence, but its silence echoes like the white-noise before a terrifying storm.

When finally rising to stand over Will, Hannibal looks down to memorize the image of the delightfully disheveled mess of a man. Another picture to paint the walls of the cannibal’s memory palace with. 

A mental struggle of his own takes place within Hannibal now as a dark, wicked lust rises through his veins and clouds his thinking, until all he can see is Will. 

There has only ever been Will.

In a few easy motions, Hannibal has unbuttoned the rest of his prison suit, letting it pool at his feet as he toes off his shoes. He takes a step closer to the bed from there and then another, not rushing to divest Will of his pants just yet. The line of his arousal can be seen clearly enough through the fabric, keeping Hannibal’s impatience to see more in-check, for now. 

One heavy hand lands beside Will’s head, palm to the mattress, as Hannibal climbs over the profiler in languid, predatory movements, ready to steal another claiming kiss. 

“Everything?” he confirms once more as his hips press Will’s down into the bed.

Will can’t hold back the moan that follows this time. Mouth parted and eyes falling back, it rises up his throat from where it had been caged in his chest, trembling and broken in its uncertainty. All Will truly knows is that the friction is undeniably delicious and it claws chills over the charts of his back as it brings his spine away from the bed in a welcoming arch, his body reacting beyond his control. 

He knows that his body wants Hannibal in this moment. Separately, Will’s mind has been struggling with what it wants for a long time, but Will has never been more sure than he is now that his mind has only ever really wanted Hannibal. The structures of their memory palaces have fractured in so many ways leading up to now, only to rebuild themselves with shared rooms and bridges to fill all of the gaps. 

Connected.

“Yes,” Will hisses out, unable to stop the way his hips jerk upwards against the other man’s, fingers digging into the sheets above his head in the effort to keep his hands where Hannibal had previously placed them. “Yes. God,  _ please _ — before I start to question myself.”

It’s in Will’s nature to question himself - to know those around him and to feel what they feel so deeply that it scatters his own emotions to the wayside. But, in this moment, Will can’t find a reason why he should continue to deny himself that which he wants.

Impatience brings his hands up and away from the mattress, directing them to rake hungry palms over the heavy expanse of Hannibal’s chest as Will tips his gaze down to where his erection slots hard against Hannibal’s. Only the few layers of his own pants and underwear, alongside the older man’s boxer-briefs, separate them now. So close and yet, just out of reach. 

They’ve been so deeply tied-together within their heads for so long now, it only makes sense that they would tie themselves in the physical as well.

“Touch me.” Will’s tone is much more demanding now. There is no ‘ _ please _ ’ anymore.

A low growl thunders in Will’s chest as his fingers claw down Hannibal’s torso, down to where their hips clash, so that the profiler can undo his own jeans and shimmy them down his thighs to the best of his ability. Mouth seeks out Hannibal’s in another searing kiss just as Will reaches for the cannibal’s free hand, wrapping fingers around the wrist and pulling it downward to encourage his palm to dip into Will’s underwear and cover the warm ache of his cock. 

“That’s my boy,” Hannibal purrs into Will’s begging mouth as long fingers wind their way around his throbbing shaft. “No more questioning yourself.” 

Hannibal squeezes Will’s cock, thumb firm against the vein underneath to emphasize the point and it causes a violent shudder to rush over Will’s squirming body. Pleasure falls over him. More pleasure than he ever thought possible. It draws forth a pearly bead of pre-cum, gathering at the head of his erection. 

Hannibal is quick to steal it away with a swipe of his thumb, bringing it to his mouth with a hum, and Will’s gaze follows the movement with a catch in his breath. 

Now when Hannibal’s eyes open, they are burnished with an even darker shade of lust that verges on primal and something far beyond human. It’s a hunger that’s endless and demanding and cruel and it’s all entirely focused on Will. 

Hannibal only pauses his stroking to lean back, hand still pressed firmly to Will’s abdomen to keep him grounded here, before reaching down and relieving them both of their boxers. Will welcomes it, lifting his hips from the mattress and allowing himself to be stripped completely bare beneath the cannibal, left to feel exposed and dissected. 

Hannibal’s eyes rake over Will’s body in adoration, before the larger man leans over enough to sift through the bedside drawer and retrieve a small bottle of lubricant. 

With slow and precise motions, never once taking his gaze or grounding touch away from Will’s gently heaving form, Hannibal sets the bottle aside. He then waits a beat and a breath, before sliding over to plant a hand next to either side of Will’s chest, palms sinking into the crumpled white sheets. 

“Look at you…” Hannibal breathes out in a moment of reverence, before closing the space between them to lean down and lick over one peaked nipple and then the other. 

His lips leave a scattered trail of hot, wet kisses over Will’s most sensitive nerves, all the way to his groin, where the cannibal makes a point of mapping out Will’s pleasure and committing it to memory. Each press of Hannibal’s mouth and swipe of his tongue places stars behind Will’s eyelids as they fall shut to hide his gaze away, the warmth and the desire blinding him.

Will wants more, spine arching to welcome each touch and mouth falling open on a trembling moan. He feels any shred of all previous hesitation continue to drip away and leave both men to nothing but their want for one another. 

Hand slipping down the length of his own body, Will digs fingers through Hannibal’s hair and begins urging the man’s head down further with gentle, insistent presses.

Hannibal sinks to his knees at the foot of the bed - a happy supplication - and gently spreads Will’s legs apart, before moving between his thighs to nose up through the coarse hair of his groin. Nostrils flare as Hannibal inhales the other’s musky scent and writes that to memory as well, logged away alongside all the many other things he finds himself loving about Will. 

“Oh, Will…” Hannibal mouths against the inside of one of the profiler’s trembling thighs, before licking a hot stripe up to his balls. 

A gasp - sharp and sudden at the contact - Will’s fingers tighten in Hannibal’s hair as eyes fly open wide. Will struggles to fight against the urge he feels to rut his hips upwards and to offer himself over further, insisting that Hannibal not stop there. Hips shimmy slightly from where Will lies against the sheets and it’s enough to speak volumes.

Hannibal doesn’t require Will’s words to know what he needs. The silent conversation between their bodies only evolves into something more heated and blissful in the most agonizing way, where too close is never close enough. They are two souls with a heavy yearning to merge into one, but they are blocked by flesh and bone.

Opening the warm wetness of his mouth around one of Will’s balls, Hannibal worships it with a full, tonguing suck. He then repeats the same process with the other, until both are tight and wet enough for the cannibal to take into his mouth. Alongside this, Hannibal’s slides a palm up Will’s cock to wind long, surgeon's fingers around the length of the shaft to start stroking again.

Will’s back cracks like a whip into a firmer arch, the hand not in Hannibal’s hair reaching up to grasp at the headboard of the bed as a wanton moan falls from the profiler’s mouth. His voice is hitched and desperate when it cuts through the open air with nothing but the other man’s name.   
  
“ _ H—annibal _ …” Needy. Will’s mind lingers distantly on the fact that he’s never said the cannibal’s name in such a way. For no reason particularly now, other than to simply say it. 

When Will casts the name upon the air with such broken abandon, the usual cool resolve that Hannibal carries himself with is lost in an instant. It elicits a low, rumbling moan of pleasure that crawls up from his throat and vibrates around Will’s sopping wet shaft. 

Hannibal returns to sucking with fervor, chasing down the sound of his name being spoken in such a way, hoping that he might hear it again. With his gaze trained upwards, Hannibal watches the taut pull of muscles over of the profiler’s perfectly lean torso as he ruts upwards, towards the cannibal’s warm, wet mouth.

Will can’t control his hips now when they give small, short thrusts, wanting only to seek out more friction from the wet glide of the man’s tongue. Knuckles go white when Will grips one hand up over the edge of the headboard and doesn’t release, another moan attempting to coax Hannibal onward with eyes screwed shut and voice breaking in the cradle of the profiler’s throat.

And the temperature of the room only rises until it consumes Will entirely - until Will can feel nothing more besides his desire and nothing feels like enough. He gives a smooth, rumbling sound that reverberates in the base of his chest as he reaches down now with both hands and tries to guide Hannibal back up onto the bed. 

The cannibal, however, needs no urging, his every predatory senses honed in on Will. Without any hesitation at all, Hannibal crawls up and covers the other man with the weight of his body and brings their mouths back together in a searing kiss.

Both men naked now, Hannibal presses down, sliding up against Will’s writhing form. Hands dragging himself further up the bed, Hannibal slinks forward as though he were some kind of beast roving over its prey, all rolling shoulders and flexing spine. On his way, Hannibal catches Will's hands, palms slid over his wrists until their fingers entwine together, the glide of skin against skin leaving the cannibal humming with pure delight. 

Lunging in to press a searing kiss against Will’s mouth, Hannibal pushes the profiler’s hands high above his head and pins them down to the bed once again. It makes Will’s spine bend to follow, effectively allowing Hannibal to stretch his lover out beneath himself, caging him there as the bulk and strength of muscle weigh down to slow his squirming.   


And, oh, does Will ever squirm wickedly, releasing low and rumbling groans into their every kiss. 

“How needy you must have been all these years, William… Horrid boy.” Hannibal purrs against Will’s jaw - a gentle tease at time wasted and a reminder of their limited time together now.

The tease brings forth a brief flicker of anger from within Will— his own monster wanting nothing more than to break free of its binds and come forward to dance beside Hannibal’s monster.

Head tilting to the side, Hannibal licks into the depths of Will’s mouth, exploring every line of pearly white teeth, the ridged roof of his mouth, and the smooth curve of his tongue. Hannibal memorizes every feel and taste as if this were their last night on earth together, while knowing that it very well might be.    


As they kiss something deep, needy, and adoring, Hannibal’s fingers flex tight and release time and time again from where they weave between Will’s and keep their hands laced together. Each squeeze emphasizes the hold Hannibal finally has on Will, and vice versa, their hands fitting together perfectly. All the while, Hannibal rolls his body down against Will’s with broad, swooping arcs of spine and hips. Hannibal’s elbows press into the mattress on either side of the other man, in order to balance himself. In evenly-paced passes that never relent, perfect friction is applied to Will’s glistening cock that now rolls alongside Hannibal’s own throbbing shaft. 

The ache is real now. The desire to consume and to be consumed bleeds through every pore with a soft flush and a glistening sheen, the electric heat simmering on the air between them as parted lips heave out panting breaths.

Letting his head tilt to the other side now, Hannibal explores Will’s mouth from every angle, hooded gaze only turning upward as the larger man brings Will’s wrists together and binds them within the hold of a single hand. 

Using his free hand, Hannibal explores the profiler’s squirming frame, flesh trembling under each ghost of a touch. Fingertips slide down the underside of Will’s arm, grazing over his armpit, before skimming his flank and counting each rib along the way, sliding all the way down to his hipbone. 

Will lifts himself into the other man’s touch with a muted sound of encouragement past parted lips as knees are pushed out with ease and hands guide Will’s thighs apart further to make room for Hannibal between them. 

Breaking their kiss, Hannibal’s gaze never leaves Will’s beautifully flushed face as a looming shoulder stretches and a hand to dips down, behind Will to allow long, skilled fingers to stroke and pet over Will’s tight, puckered hole. One finger pauses against the rim to prod and test, Hannibal’s head pulling back just enough to take in Will’s expression. 

Everything about him is painted in a feral, animal bliss now. The touch - in a place where no one has ever touched him before - is one that sends sharp jolts of static up and down the length of Will’s body. He releases a strangled groan, eyelids hooded and his flush deepening over each plane and soft curve of flesh.

“I want to claim all of you for myself, Will. I want to fuck you. Tell me yes.” The obscenity is tossed off the tip of the cannibal’s tongue for intentional effect - anything to see Will squirm with shock and delight beneath him. 

Something tells Hannibal that Will has never quite been coveted in this way before, and oh, does his boy ever enjoy it, just as expected. Hips buck upwards insistently underneath Hannibal’s and a tremor passes over Will’s entire being.

Hannibal’s head lowers as his lips meet Will’s, before mouthing, “Tell me yes,” once more just as the hand underneath Will presses a finger inside, two knuckles deep.

Will gasps out with the intrusion, eyes going wide and head falling back to break their kiss as Hannibal angles his hips and thrusts down in order to seek a perfect friction for both of their arousals. It’s a deliciously overwhelming combination - to have Hannibal’s finger burying itself inside of him, while Will ruts upwards into each hard slip and slide of their cocks against one another.

It’s too much for a moment and Will has to fight against his already ever-looming orgasm, before he’s able to find his words to give Hannibal an answer.   
  
“Yes,” Will hisses out, arms straining above his head as he tries to fight against the other man’s hold on either of his wrists. “Yes, yes, yes…  _ fuck, yes _ .”

It’s chanted out, demanding now and heated as Will continues to lift his hips up to meet every smooth roll of the other man’s against him. The finger that remains buried inside of the profiler is a welcomed breach into new territory, no matter the nervousness Will feels for it, or the slight edge of unease that comes along with the thought of giving himself entirely to Hannibal.

Will knows that he would be claiming a part of Hannibal as well, just the same. 

“Add another,” Will insists, squirming down against the finger that strokes away at his insides - his breath is hot in the space between both men. “I want to feel more.”

“Greedy,” Hannibal purrs and drags his mouth over Will’s, licking at his top lip. 

But he concedes, of course. Releasing Will’s wrists just long enough to reach for the bedside table, Hannibal flicks over the cap to the nearby bottle of lube and coats his fingers with it, making them slick and ready to prepare the other man. Meanwhile, Will’s hands have lifted from the mattress and reached outwards to claw fingertips over the slopes of Hannibal’s shoulders— a growling, eager attempt to hurry the older man along.

Hannibal doesn’t waste time from there. A hand goes back to collect each of Will’s scrambling wrists, pinning them back to the bed, before Hannibal’s opposite hand brings lubed fingers down, behind Will and between the cleft of his ass. A few smooth, coaxing rubs are given against his hole, before two long digits are pressed inside and Will arches with the fill, head falling back and a long moan tumbling forth from his throat, chest heaving with his pleasure for it.

The sensation of those tight and hot muscles clenching around Hannibal’s fingers as they curl and scissor and massage, tips brushing down the trembling walls, draws up possessive growls from the cannibal. It’s a low, feral sound that mirrors Will’s.

Hannibal takes note of how much Will enjoys the struggle of the flesh - as in spirit, as in body. The grip around Will’s wrists tightens to nearly-bruising, bones crossed over bones and crushed there. Hannibal yanks them upward - short and hard, forcing Will to stretch out beneath him with a strangled gasp. 

It’s a stretch that has muscles trembling and Will’s ribs jutting under smooth flesh, his back having no choice but to arch almost painfully to accommodate the lengthening of his body.

Hannibal’s gaze sweeps down the bed, taking in the other’s writhing form - a streak of pale cream against the dark, silken sheets below. The cannibal suspects that even Botticelli would falter in capturing the sublime image. 

“Look at you…” Hannibal breathes out at their cocks roll against one another, sure to rut his hips forward in slow and steady sweeps. 

And, oh, the way Will squirms down in every effort to ride the thrusting hand beneath him is divine, the lithe muscles of his torso flexing and straining in pure poetry. He is an absolute agony of want. The veil of refined civility is ripped away when Hannibal sees Will like this - begging and wanton.   


Where Hannibal’s hand had been gentle and coaxing before, it now thrusts roughly up into Will, brutally abusing that fold of flesh deep inside that would tease at his pleasure. At the same time, the larger man lunges, covering Will’s mouth in a devouring kiss, taking every breath and moan into his keep. Their taste, their feel, their sound - it’s all locked deep into the vault of Hannibal’s memory palace for safe keeping.

Grace is done away with and a primal beast takes its place, set on taking every part of Will down with him. 

It’s the first that Will has had fingers brush over his prostate, intent of drawing forth his pleasure. It’s a hot, blinding, and foreign feeling that brings his eyes to fly open wide, jaw dropping and lips parted as his hips snap forward, angling in such a way that both fucks himself down onto Hannibal’s fingers, and also offers himself up to the other man for the taking.

Hannibal shifts down further and kicks Will’s legs apart more, releasing his wrists along the way. Hands travel down the line of Will’s trembling form as the larger man slowly comes to kneel upright between his lover’s thighs, leaving a trail of kisses and bites down Will’s torso in his wake, tongue paying special attention to each of the profiler’s pert nipples as he passes. 

Quickly, upon being granted the freedom to let his touch wander freely again, Will’s hands reach out to both wind fingers into Hannibal’s hair and to claw faint red lines into his flesh, rumbling groans of encouragement sounding from within Will’s chest.

Gazes locked, digits continue to thrust hard and deep into Will’s heat while Hannibal’s spare hand then moves to wind long fingers around the thickness of his own shaft. As Hannibal starts to stroke, his lips purse and curl, maw stretching and neck muscles straining as his entire body sways with the fluid motions of his wrist.   
  
Desire has them both bound tight in this moment, the escalating heat reaching a scalding level as the air fizzles with anticipation. The cannibal can feel his skin thrumming with need.

“ _ Hannibal..! _ ” It’s gasped out when fingertips give a rather firm stroke over Will’s prostate.

Will’s spine snaps once more as his hips jerk forward, chills crawling up and down his body as everything in him goes taut and teeters just on the edge of release. Will feels as though he’s been tied up and dangled by a thread, losing his footing just before the free fall. 

Right when it nearly gets to be too much, the stroking over his prostate halts.

Chin tilting up, the brawn of Hannibal’s chest flexes when he suddenly squeezes his cock tight mid-stroke in an effort to halt his own orgasm, pleasure and want threatening to tip him just over the edge as well. Watching Will come apart like this underneath him -  _ for _ him - has the cannibal hovering on the precipice, ready to drop into heady bliss. Lips part to give way into a primal moan, the cannibal’s eyes rolling shut, before snapping opening again.

Drawing a sharp inhale through his flared nostrils, Hannibal eases his fingers out of Will’s hole, regardless of the whining protest that is given, before he gently presses his palm to Will’s arching abdomen, trapping him down against the bed.    
  
Tilting his hips back, Hannibal uses his free hand to apply more lube his shaft until it’s slick and wet. There will be no undue cruelty in this moment of all moments.

Hannibal winds his fingers around his cock, taking command of it, before he lowers his hips and pivots, just enough to press the head of his swollen arousal against Will’s virgin hole. He swipes the wet tip back and forth over the rim, smearing the Will’s entrance with a warm glaze of pre-cum.

“Tell me.”   
  
It’s not a  _ yes _ Hannibal wants. He isn’t looking for another declaration of need.

No, Hannibal wants to hear those three coveted words fall from Will’s lips— something even more coveted than the heaven between his thighs.

Will can read it in the other man’s gaze - something serious and demanding. It demands an answer now - no more mind games and no more reading in between the lines. 

What Hannibal seeks is a definitive truth. A confirmation that everything leading up to this moment had, indeed, written something very permanent and something almost sacred within them, painting an image of the other from within the walls of each of their minds. He seeks the other side of the coin— the one that reflects an answer to a question Will had very recent voiced aloud to the open air:  _ ‘is Hannibal in love with me?’ _

With eyes clamped shut and breath hitched, Will is forced to remain still by the press of Hannibal’s hand - kept in one place and unable to squirm down against the touch of the man’s cock between his legs. 

So close… they’re both so very close.

“I—“ Will starts, voice catching, before he swallows thickly and musters up what courage he might need. “I… love you. Hannibal.”

It’s said on an aching and quiet exhale, brows knitted into a worried furrow and eyes turning up to catch the other man’s as Will digs blunt fingernails into the bows of either of Hannibal’s shoulders. 

A fire burns in Will’s eyes, lighting hotter when he demands the same in return. “Say it.”

_ His boy _ . 

That ceaseless wildfire in Will’s eyes. 

That feisty demand, even when laid bare and pinned by a hungry cannibal.

Those. Three. Words.

Hannibal’s hand presses down and claws at the tender flesh of Will’s abdomen as Hannibal slowly pivots his hips forward, breaching Will’s rim. With each inch Hannibal’s swollen head pushes in, Will’s tight ring of muscle protests and clenches, providing such heady pleasure that a rare and guttural groan spills over the cannibal’s lips. 

As much as he wants to ease Will into this -  to have this memory stored as something tender and loving - love was simply a far too brutal beast for that. Or, at least it was when Hannibal was the delivering hand of passion.

With a sharp snap of his hips, Hannibal’s cock splits open Will’s heat, burying himself to the hilt and fighting the grip of virgin muscles all the way. Hannibal claims his boy in one swift piston. 

Will’s spine bows away from the mattress again in utter shock for the vehement swell of pain and pleasure that mix alike from within him now. His eyes fly wide as he gives a soundless cry, jaw dropping and hands scrambling at the bare skin of Hannibal’s back in order to keep a steady hold on the man. Anything for balance. Anything to bring Will back to solid ground.

The impossibly divine warmth of the firm hold around Hannibal’s girth gives way to more primal groans, raw and sated all at once. Hannibal’s hands slip upward and land hard against the bed for balance, forcing the mattress to bounce beneath them with it.   
  
Hannibal holds still as he grants Will the grace to grow accustomed to the stretch. He fights every fiber of his being to hold his pose and not press forward, seeking ever more friction and heat. 

Hannibal’s dark, hooded gaze slowly pans up to lock with Will’s perfect sky-blue, before finally moving with with slow and menacing undulations of muscle and bone to sink down on his elbows, lowering himself enough to cover Will’s lips with his own. It’s then, and only then, that he murmurs directly into Will’s mouth, words for him to consume and keep. 

“Oh, my Will... I have always loved you. Just as our stars are the same, so are our hearts and souls.”

It hurts. Physically, yes, this act hurts. 

However, to hear Hannibal voice his confession aloud now hurts in the most beautifully exquisite and most soul-crushing way. It shakes Will to his very core and divides him into thousands of small, porcelain shards that scatter out and litter the past and the present, lost over the span of this world and into the next one after it.

And, in this world, Hannibal is in love with him - a feeling that Will knows that he returns. It’s a feeling that goes deeper than love because even now, it seems like such a weak word. Far too weak to describe someone who Will is sure has been there with him his entire life, perched silent and shapeless just in the back of his mind, waiting for the right moment to materialize.

One hand shifts up to brush stray curls away from the profiler’s forehead as Hannibal withdraws his cock, only to slam it in once again. And again. And again. Each thrust long enough to allow Hannibal to drink in Will’s every cry and expression of both pain and bliss. 

Will doesn’t hold back his voice now. Rough and hoarse sounds of pleasure waver in his throat, hitched on quick gasps whenever Hannibal thrusts back inside to fill him painfully.

“How could you ever doubt that we had any destiny but the one in this moment?” Hannibal’s voice is low against the shell of Will’s ear.

Will doesn’t know the answer. 

He used to think he knew. Now, Will can’t remember for the life of him why he’d ever harbored any doubt for the man currently pinning him to the bed.

The world and time itself all melt away as the cannibal covers Will with his body and takes over his mouth with heated, hungry kisses - filling him, claiming Will for his own. 

“Tell me, Will. Tell me I own you. Tell me that you are mine, that you have always been mine.”    
  
The sweeping rolls of Hannibal’s hips slow in speed, but gain in power, if only to stave off his own barreling orgasm that threatens to crest with every thrust.

“I am,” Will swallows thickly, before it rips away into a broken moan. “ _ Yours _ , I mean. I think I was always meant to be… I don’t fit anywhere else.”

Hannibal rolls his forehead against Will’s - a tender motion amidst the brutal fucking, “There is nowhere else, my dear boy. Just here. Just us. Never need mind. Never need mind.” His brushes their lips together before sharp teeth nip, silencing the spiraling worry of his ever-worried boy.

The closest thing to love that Will understands has always been Hannibal. Before Hannibal, love had always been a vague and fluid emotion that always seemed to slip through the cracks of his fingers whenever he’d tried his best to catch it. 

“And you— you belong to me.” It isn’t a question when Will declares it, one arm winding up to thread fingers through Hannibal’s hair, cupping the back of the cannibal’s head to drag him in for a kiss that Will hisses into. “Say it. Say that you do.”

With the demand, Will grazes teeth over the line of Hannibal’s lower lip. Will bites just enough to tug and growl deep in his chest, the distant taste of blood rushing his senses. 

Connection made. 

Bond sealed. 

Claimed. 

Hannibal’s whole being shakes with the rumbling growl that verges on a howl as blood consumes him. The final restraints are stripped as he tumbles onto Will, chest smacking against chest, shoulders blunt and caging. Hands push up into Will’s hair as Hannibal delivers his own swift bite to Will’s lower lip, drawing a well of blood so sweet in return that his dark gaze becomes burnished with unshed tears.

“You…” He breathes as though a divine revelation is blowing through him, rocking him bone-deep to shatter up his soul, rearranging the furniture of his heart there.

The kisses and bites are frantic, the snaps of two predators brawling for dominance, but the thrust of Hannibal’s hips is steady. Gazes connect again as Hannibal licks over his own lips, swiping away the sheen of carmine. The hands that have threaded into Will’s curls grip fast and yank, forcing the profiler’s head back so that his throat is bared.

And Hannibal rears up, back curled into a violent arch as his hips drive forward. A snarl crawls out from between curled lips as he takes in the sight of his prone lover. 

“Beautiful. Just as I always dreamed…” A smooth, but heated exhale.

One of Hannibal’s hands drift away from Will’s hair, the other still holding him firmly in place. Skilled surgeon’s fingers trace the long, strained straps of muscles running the length of the profiler’s arched throat. 

“You…” Hannibal breathes again. 

The long, slow roll of Hannibal’s hips sway both men against the heavy atmosphere of the room. His tracing finger turns and scratches a red welt down the milk white of Will’s throat, teasing at the pulsing jugular. “How long I have dreamed of touching you in just this way. All your words. Just here. And this…” 

Hannibal’s head snaps forward, teeth closing over that same thrumming vein. A claiming bite, savage enough to draw blood forth and a gasp of pain. Full lips suck over the metal taste, a hum perched in the back of Hannibal’s throat. 

With his length spearing Will repeatedly, and teeth clamped neatly around his throat, Hannibal finally murmurs, “Yes, Will. If I was to belong to anyone under any star, it would be you. I am yours. I always will be, just as I always have been.”

Will can do nothing but release a satisfied moan in answer.

“And you...” Hannibal grinds his hips down as he continues, filling Will completely and testing every angle. “You feel that truth in your bones. You’ve know it to be true. You’ve always known it. You simply wanted to see if I would kill for it— if I would kill to earn your love. And I did. And you bathed in their blood, each and every one. And it was beautiful.” 

Hannibal’s blood-stained lips kiss the words to Will’s weeping throat like an erotic sonnet held too long against a murderer’s breast. And Will is close now. So unbearably close to completion as each word conjures up a sobbed groan of relief.

The violent and jarring thrusts of Hannibal’s hips into his own bring the hard line of Will’s cock to brush up against the other man’s abdomen, stroking against the rippling muscles there with every motion. Will moves his body in sync, hips lifting to greet each rut as he reaches up to fumble one hand against the headboard of the bed, pushing against it and using it as leverage to press himself down further against the girth that fucks into him.

It’s an equally feral and animal push-pull of their bodies in tandem, until a particularly aggressive thrust from Hannibal slides Will further up the length of the bed with a gasp, the hand against the headboard now pushing to keep himself at a distance enough that his head doesn’t hit it with every slam of Hannibal’s hips into him.

“Hannibal! I’m close… I’m not gonna last.”

Hannibal licks a hot, bloody stripe up the hollow of Will’s throat, before moving to kiss him once again, “Oh, I don’t want you to last. I want you to be… magnificent.” 

The words snake over the rich curve of Hannibal’s lips to circle around Will and rouse him up, drawing him forth. Each syllable a gift of mercy.

Hannibal reaches down between them, skimming down the length if Will’s chest, his journey only complete when long fingers wind around Will’s cock and stroke in time with the thrust of their hips.

Gazes locked, Hannibal’s motions start to become erratic and brutal as the coiled heat in his spine, that long-held liquid ache, releases in a trail of white, blinding all of his senses. He shakes with it, sweat sliding down his temples and neck, as he pumps Will full of his seed. 

Hips stutter forth the final warm ropes of his release, marking Will as his own as the sure and steady stroke of Hannibal’s hand takes care to milk the very same from Will. Hho calls out with it, muscles shuddering and the wetness of his own orgasm painting the slip and slide of their skin from where they remain slotted together. 

Like two glass halves of a whole, glued together in a brilliant gold.

“Good boy.” Hannibal murmurs again and again as he kisses away each shaken exhale. “My boy.” 

  
  


***

 

Fresh from the shower, Will wanders into the lounge, hands sliding into the pockets of his jeans. He doesn’t ask Hannibal how he knows his clothing size and he doesn’t ask where the clothes came from. He simply knows, they are for him.

Night closed in fast as they had rolled around like the beasts that they were - claiming, wrestling, feasting on the flesh of one another like starving things. 

The coolness of the air as it pets over Will’s exposed throat now is welcomed. It helps to soothe the blissful agony that had been bitten there, and other places. Hannibal had near broken him with his passion and need.

Emerging from the shadows, Hannibal crosses the room, opening a wine bottle, candle light glinting off the opaque glass - warm and bloody. 

“You're playing games with yourself in the dark of the moon.” Hannibal sets the bottle down and then takes his time to wipe down three wine glasses that are resting on a nearby side table. 

They both know who the third guest would be, and that he will not be drinking wine. But, regardless, Hannibal is ever the consummate host.

“Wasn't surprising that I heard from the Great Red Dragon. Was it surprising when you heard from him?”

Silence. Hesitation. Will’s gaze flicks up toward Hannibal’s, this new intimacy between them strange and yet... not.  “Yes and no”

“You intend to watch him kill me?” Hannibal asks simply.

“I intend to watch him change you.” Will can’t help but bite the words out in bitterness. 

The game they are in had been set to play by Hannibal long ago. Will could not have anticipated the sudden shift in affections— he one thing he had been most blind to, and most vulnerable to, in the stoic man before him.

And, oh, what it took not to seek out and step into his embrace again now.

Hannibal takes that in Will’s words and the tone in which they are woven from. A sad kind of smile shadows his face as he fingers the corkscrew. For a moment, he contemplates killing Will with it, and claiming his freedom. Instead, he uses the tip to cut the seal on the wine bottle. “My compassion for you is inconvenient, Will.”

“If you're partial to beef products, it's inconvenient to be compassionate toward a cow.” 

The dance of love and hate between them continues - or so it would seem.

“Save yourself, kill them all?”

“I don't know if I can save myself. And maybe that's just fine.” Will struggles to meet Hannibal’s gaze now, a tremor in his words.

"No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend."

Will swallows hard, his throat aching from the claws of love and the depth of truth that pours forth from the cannibal now. Just as it always had in this way. Will had just been listening wrong, perhaps, to himself most of all.

“He's watching us now.”

“I know.”

And just like that, forever was shattered in a moment.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Everything from here on out takes place post-season three of the show, now set during SOTL. It's a shift, but things will start to work out well between all three of the characters, trust us!**   
> 

It was a risk. A huge risk. But everything about working alongside Hannibal Lecter, outside the reach of the F.B.I. was a risk. Hell, even working alongside Hannibal _within_ reach of the F.B.I. was risk enough.

From the driver’s seat of her parked car, Clarice exhales a fat plume of smoke and draws a deep breath, before crushing out her cigarette in the ashtray and pushing it shut. A nasty habit and one that she’s only taken up as of recently.

Glancing up towards the rear view mirror, she locks gaze with her own sea-green eyes, before double checking her gun and the knife that remains strapped to hide against her leg. Satisfied everything is just as it should be, she steps out of her car and quietly shuts the door behind her - the key turns and locks with a gentle ‘ _clink_ ’.

Although, really, if all she had read was true, then Mister Graham would already be very aware that she was here— keeping quiet wouldn’t keep her safe. She would have no upper-hand in this. Still, it only makes her extra vigilant as she walks around towards the front door, up the steps of the porch with chin held high as she takes care to scan her surroundings.

The surrounding snow, stripped trees and muddy tracks lend a bleak sense of coolness to the scene - the chill of it stains her cheeks and nose a soft frost-pink.

The house stands alone, isolated, and desolate, but it gives those who might be inside it a perfect view of the perimeter. Of her.

In her time talking with, and interviewing Hannibal Lecter, Clarice had learned to read and even speak his riddles and clues. They had come to the point now that they practically spoke their own private language, even in front of all the prying eyes and cameras. And _that_ is exactly how she had found the infamous Mister Graham.

Most people assumed Mister Graham had died after the fall over the cliff side. A rare few actually suspect that he may be in hiding. Only Hannibal Lecter knows for sure— and now, Clarice.

She had known upon coming here that it would be highly likely, if not accurate, that Mister Graham would be less-than-hospitable towards any guests. Especially those that show up unannounced. Clarice’s only leverage in this situation would be her connection to Hannibal Lecter.

They had been rumored to be lovers, after all, for a time. But time can be a tricky thing, as can love.

Clarice rubs her palms down the front of her jeans, straightens her shirt, and brushes back stray strands of hair from her eyes, before she draws in another deep breath and knocks on the door. The second her knuckles hit wood, her other hand reaches back to clamp over the gun at her side and inches it out of the holster. Just in case.

She knows it would be foolish to underestimate Hannibal Lecter and certainly foolish to underestimate Will Graham. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that Hannibal may have gone so far as to send her to her own death by suggesting that Mister Graham may help her on the current case. But given how _attached_ Hannibal Lecter had grown towards Clarice - and her towards him, in her own way - she doubts he would sign her death warrant so quickly.

If he wanted her dead, it would be by his own hand or, at least, something for him to bare witness to. Something for him to capture as a most-sensual little memento to store inside his memory palace.

A flush creeps up her neck and tingles at the back of her scalp at the mere thought of the cannibal - at the thought of just how _wrong_ it would be considered, should anyone come to know about this connection they seemingly share. Horribly and wonderfully _wrong._ Not all riddles are innocent, it seems. The cannibal could draw the darkness out of just about anyone. And maybe it’s that raw, beautiful darkness that had brought her here at all.

Doubts begin to crawl and pearly teeth worry at her lower lip as she waits - just before the door finally opens.

 

***

 

Will had been alone with his thoughts when she'd arrived. He was always alone with his thoughts now - holed up in a home that he doesn’t often recognize. It had taken him a long time to really call it ‘ _home_ ’ at all. At first it had just been ‘ _house_ ’, and sometimes it still is.

Like shards of mirror and porcelain cups with tiny, fragile handles, everything had split and fallen - dashed and divided over the expanse of time. It had left Will Graham alone, and perhaps further buried within the thick fog of madness he had always seemed to run from.

The searches had stopped a while ago - he'd been able to hole himself up and remain tucked in isolation. Now, Will really only leaves to restock the pantry, when he _does_ remember to feed himself something other than whiskey.

It had been this way for too long now. Days, months, years. It all bleeds together into a present forged from a past of forgiveness and forgiveness returned. Since Will had tossed both himself and Hannibal from the cliff that night. Since they had shared one night of intimacy— and, oh, how it had been intimate in ways Will had never even imagined possible.

Years apart, just for one night together. And now? Time has separated them again.

When Hannibal had been rescued and caught, Will had managed to get away and go into hiding. The headlines and mug shots had been everywhere for a long while, but just like everything, they soon died down into a quiet static. A memory.

Still, the question remained: what had happened to Will Graham?

Really, he had been left to recollect the pieces of broken china, alone. Maybe he's still working on recollecting them.

Maybe he never really started.

Will would often find himself wondering if Hannibal ever grieved the loss of him. Will had come to realize just how good he was at grieving, himself.

And so, as is the same with all of the night before, Will had been alone, with fingers wrapped around another glass of whiskey, when he'd heard the crunch of tires on gravel. It had sent him into action immediately, regardless of who it might be.

Will never has visitors. He can't remember the last time that he’s had company, or the want for it.

Glass thrown down to the surface of the table with amber liquid sloshing up over the edges, Will had yanked open the drawer of a nearby desk and reached an arm inside - just enough to grasp towards the back and pull out a pistol from hiding.

He has nothing to lose, and has no reason to be afraid anymore - of anything, really - but that doesn't mean Will ever throws caution completely to the wind.

Will had already been at the door when the knock came. The gun stays  tucked into the back of his jeans, and his hand at the ready to grasp it free if needed. After drawing a staggered breath, the door had finally been pulled open, until stopped by the chain-lock.

From here, Will squints in order to take in the appearance of the woman on the other side of the threshold through the crack provided. Blonde. Petite. Pretty. Something he would have considered to his taste, before he’d lost his appetite for anything close to affection.

Love is and would always stand to be the only thing more destructive than Hannibal Lecter that Will had ever encountered.    
  
Eyes lower and Will notes that one of her hands remains hidden at her side, mirroring his own, and it's only then that he tightens his fingers over the handle of his pistol, just in case. His voice is biting and cold when he finally speaks, breaking their paused silence as both seem to size one another up.

"This is private property." Will growls out, eyes darting to the side window where he can see a the front end of a car parked just under where the drapes fall.

Clarice winces inside at the man’s savage tone, but her composure never wavers. They are at a stalemate. Her gaze drifts down to catch where Mister Graham is reaching for his gun and, in a quick series of fluid motions, she kicks the door open and forces him back, before shoving her gun under the line of his chin. He stumbles. He’s been drinking. She can smell the whiskey on his breath as he huffs out through curled lips formed into a snarl.

Once she has him pressed against the nearest wall, Clarice reaches around to grab for his gun.

“After everything Hannibal Lecter told me, I had thought you’d be above stating the obvious, Mister Graham.” There is a faint ‘ _tsk_ ’, almost coy tone to her words. They’re delivered with an arched brow and canted jaw.

As she leans around him, their cheeks almost brushing, there is an undeniable charge in the air, her fingertips brushing over his hip and lower back. Although Clarice is long and flexible, her grasping fingers can’t get to Will’s gun, tucked just out of reach and his body twisted to keep it that way.

Knowing it would be a wasted effort to continue trying - instead, she chooses to brace both her hands against the gun that she keeps wedged under the hard line of his chin. She can see now why Hannibal remains to be so fascinated with this man.

At the sound of a scuffle, Will’s dogs come running from the other room, some barking loudly and other releasing a throaty growl, able to sense the tension and this new threat that has presented itself. Will is quick to put a stop to it, his other hand lifting just a little with palm held out towards them in order to bring them all to a halt, just as two terse hisses fall past the press of his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

The dogs fall silent in an instant, some even retreating back with a whine. That is all it takes.

“I’m Special Agent Starling. I need your help. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly...” She trails off, looking down to where Will’s arm is tucked behind himself, between his body and the wall, with hand most definitely wrapped around his gun. “Certainly there's no need for trouble.”

Her lips are parted just enough to draw in panting breaths of her own, eyes blinking rapidly as she keeps the scene in-focus and her nerves in-check. Boots wedge against the floorboards as Clarice widens her stance and sets her shoulders back. Every movement she makes from here on out is telegraphed.

Ever-so-slowly, she takes one hand off the gun, raises it, and states, “I am reaching for my badge,” before sliding a hand into her breast pocket and pulling out her credentials. She holds them up for Will to examine, though is unsure if he really cares. Protocol is protocol.

While her gaze is narrowed and hard, her jaw tense, fear still snakes up her spine in a cold slither. She hasn’t had a chance to clear the room - anyone could be behind her and, without a partner with her, Clarice has no back up.

Will eyes over her badge, before he’s sure to cast a pointed look in her direction, brows raised with a slight forward nod of his head. Almost as though he could feel the presence of that fear - as though he enjoyed playing with it, dangling the danger out in the open, if only just to _see it._

Hannibal had warned Clarice that Will would be capable of raking her soul over with just a single gaze. He would sense her fear because he would know it. Her madness. Her darkness. Will would take all of it and he would turn it on her. Regardless, Clarice had known she would have to try. People are dying. Besides, it’s only the truly afraid that can be pressed enough to also be brave, right? Either that, or Clarice was simply, very gullible.

Will pierces through her with such an intensity, you would believe him to know all of her thoughts and actions five steps before she actually makes them. Like he knows something that she doesn’t.

It’s this look, alone, that leaves Clarice with the fear she might very well be the latter— awfully, terribly, and disappointingly _gullible_. A lure used to simply tug a former lover back into Hannibal’s orbit.

Clarice wonders: would Hannibal use her in such a way? It would be crass. Obvious.

Hannibal isn’t like that. Not with her.

Will feels anger welling below the surface and wants nothing more than to release that anger out onto her. He doesn’t know her - only knows her name because she’d chosen to give it to him. All formalities aside, she is an intruder. His skin pricks with black static under everywhere her fingers touch and it crawls up his spine, setting his teeth on edge. Oh, there is a boiling rage in Will’s veins, but he keeps it tucked under a careful and watchful mask.

For now, he is far too curious as to why she's here. He won’t take any sort of action - not yet.

Will is also curious as to why Clarice squirms so obviously under his gaze. He’s seen that look before, in times gone by. It’s a haunted and needy expression - one that is much the same as the one that had been reflected in the mirror anytime Hannibal had been near.

_Hannibal._

"Showing up unannounced and holding a gun to someone’s head, isn't the way one usually goes about asking them for help," Will says finally, and there's a seriousness in his tone, yes, but a very clear flicker of sarcasm in his eyes as well as they stare her down. He is almost playful in how he toys with Clarice and her fear now.

And yes, he's spent the last few minutes reading and memorizing her face, logging it to memory alongside the name written out across her credentials.

Clarice Starling. Special Agent. She looks young; Will wonders if perhaps she’s still a student.

Her features are fine - porcelain skin and plum lips, all framed in strands of honey-blonde. But it’s her sea-green eyes, vividly clear, that have Will truly intrigued, above all else. Although bright with focus, there is a glimmer darkness there - a shadow of fear, that draws him in and calls his own monster out to play.

_Hannibal._

“It was either the gun, or chocolates and flowers. I didn’t peg you for a sweet-tooth.” Clarice’s tone is dry when she answers and Will’s expression hardly changes.

Lips still pressed into a tight line and jaw clenched where the gun braces against it, Will shifts to remove his hand from his own weapon and raises both in a position of surrender, hands up and palms towards Clarice on either side of him. He cocks a brow pointedly and, after having stared holes into her for a long enough pause, he looks briefly over Clarice’s shoulder towards the door that remains open from their stumble inside.

"If you don't mind. I'd like to shut the door so I can keep out any more bugs than we might have already let in," he says, bitterness obvious in the snap of each of his words.

He doesn't care about the bugs, not really. His safe space has been invaded. The only thing keeping him from the outside and from everything that had, at one time, broken itself inside and ripped his life into unrecognizable pieces of what it once had been.

Clarice winces slightly at the sharpness to his words, before briefly looking towards the front door as well, and then back to Will. She nods once and steps back, gun still raised as she clears the room behind her with steady sweeps over careful eyes.

A short nod of his own is given as Will goes to shut the front door, locking the deadbolt while he's at it, just to do away with the possibility of anyone else coming inside. He's almost certain that Clarice is here alone, but you can never be too careful.

And as for her rather abrasive entrance? They both know it would be stupid for her to turn up on his doorstep unarmed and unwilling to draw if things were to go south.

Dangerous men do dangerous things. Simple as that.

Clarice clicks the safety on and sheathes the gun back into its holster at her hip, before moving to crouch over to the dogs and offer them a hand to sniff. One of them steps forward and she ruffles its head. For a brief second she can breathe again, the soft fur grounding her and distracting from the tension of the moment and from the fear that still pricks at the back of her neck. Reluctantly, she moves to stand straight again and turns to watch Will.  

She hangs almost awkwardly in the middle of the room, very much aware that she has just crashed into a life that is barely holding itself together. All on this small island of solitude Will has crafted.

Clarice glances at the whiskey from where the bottle sits on the coffee table, beside a glass that had been left half-full, before she directs her gaze back to Will.

“Enough for two? I tend to find any conversation that involves the name, Hannibal Lecter, also requires enough alcohol to sink a small ship.” She shrugs, brushing palms down each of her hips to wipe the nervous sweat away. She figures if Will can see through her, there is no use in hiding her fear.

She walks over to the lounge, but waits for his invitation to sit, aware that Will may be quick to change his demeanor at any moment and draw his weapon - or that he may just as quickly kick her out.

"You can sit." The offer is given, short and cold, though not necessarily in a way that such a chill is directed towards her. Will is only trying to protect himself.

When Clarice promptly moves to take her seat, setting her bag aside, Will goes into the kitchen to grab a second glass for her, before he makes his way back into the living area to then fill it with whiskey. Will hands it over to his guest and is sure to top off his own glass. For a split second, he heavily considers drinking straight from the bottle, what with how things have gone tonight already.

Clarice takes her drink gratefully, knowing she will need it as well. She makes a mental note to keep careful watch of each refill - not to have too much. She would, inevitably, need to drive herself back home.

Every word Will has spoken thus far cuts at her like a tiny cold blade, his tone tense enough to lead Clarice into believing he would prefer she bleed out on the floor in front of him, rather than hear her speak again. And maybe he would.

Chewing her lip, Clarice weighs her thoughts out carefully, before voicing them.

“He misses you,” she says quietly, “He says he sees you in his memory palace. But I can tell, it’s not the same.”

She would not be the same. Not after all of this.

Now that the smoke has cleared and the air around them has had a chance to settle, the mention of Hannibal is enough to jam cold and clammy fingers into the cavity of Will's chest. They reach in and scrape over the tender ache of his insides. Will has the sudden desire to crawl within himself and hide, into the middle of the white noise and the static.

When he sits in the chair opposite hers, taking another swig of whiskey, a tremor travels through him and emotion just barely flashes across his face. It's brief - like a glimmer in time, or a flicker of a light as it fights to turn itself on, somewhere within a vast palace that has been boarded up and left vacant for years. Hannibal had once said each of their memory palaces shared rooms between the two of them. Will wonders if the cannibal can feel the cold that seeps from the rooms that Will had once occupied.

He has to steel himself through the clench of his jaw and an almost-snarl, before Will finally answers, allowing his gaze to flicker up and meet Clarice's.

He changes the subject.

"You said you need my help with something," Will starts, a sigh to falling past his lips as he leans back in his chair and crosses one ankle over the opposite knee.

Tired. Will is just as exhausted as he looks, worn down and weathered by the darkness he still continues to run from. His darkness had become a heavy burden to carry again, once Hannibal had vanished from his side.

_Hannibal._

Clarice notes the way in which Will struggles and squirms— all done without moving at all. It’s almost as if his insides are shifting and seething before her, turning the energy of the room along with them. Even the dogs grow restless. She pulls her legs up tight underneath her, just in case. She tries to make herself as small as possible, curled up on the chair opposite to him.

“I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn. But if you ever wanted Hannibal to know… anything.” Her voice nearly drops into a whisper in an effort not to cause any further hurt.

An offering made in exchange for Will helping her - a direct, unmonitored line of connection to Hannibal. Clarice’s bargaining chip.

"It's fine," Will clips with a soft sigh, waving it off, before taking another drink from his glass to empty it. He gives another attempt at changing the subject with, "Did Jack Crawford have anything to do with you coming here?"

Clarice’s fingers tremble around the glass she holds. If she were to answer honestly, she would reveal two things: that Jack doesn’t know she had come here, and thus, that she is currently working outside the law by being here.

From there, it’s not hard to guess that Clarice has also showed up here with no back up.

She coughs once and runs her fingers over her lips. “No. Jack doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. I hunted you down on my own. But someone will notice if I don’t return.”

The last line is a lie. She hopes Will doesn’t see through it, but knows he would anyway.

A laugh - short, but genuine just the same - suddenly curls low and gravely in Will's throat. He brings a hand up to run fingers over his mouth in a moment of _almost_ -humor.

"I'm no threat to you, Clarice, unless I feel you're a threat to me,” he says. “As for helping you, I'm really not sure how much use I can be.”

Clarice is a threat to Will’s freedom, yes, but he has no connection to this place. It would be easy for him to pack everything all at once and run without leaving a single trace behind. But that's only if she chooses to open her mouth about his whereabouts. Will is fairly confident that she won't. Hannibal wouldn't want that, would he?

After a gentle sigh, Clarice gives a nod in understanding, but decides to press onward.

She throws the rest of her drink back in one hit, squeezing her eyes shut tight, relishing the burn. When she opens them again with a tiny grimace, she leans forward, elbows to knees, to possibly appeal to whatever humanity Will had left.

“Young women are dying. Hannibal knows who the killer is. He feeds me riddles and recipes and keeps pointing at you,” she goes on. “Most people think you’re dead. Those who don’t, think you’re in hiding... and guilty. But I don’t think that at all, Mister Graham.”

Clarice sets her empty glass on the table and eases back into the comfort of the chair she occupies, keeping her gaze cast downward. It’s very clear Will doesn’t like eye contact and Clarice won’t push him farther than necessary. Anxious fingers reach up pull out her ponytail and rake through her hair as she explains further.

“Hannibal likes games - and he misses you. I think he’s trying to get you to play this ‘ _game_ ’ with him.” Clarice glances up once, her green eyes narrowed and her tone direct. “They’re dying. There’s a cycle. A woman has been taken— senator’s daughter. In three days she will be skinned alive.”

She lets that sink in as she gets up to fetch the whiskey bottle, filling each of their glasses again.

"I'm sure. Hannibal has always had an affinity for games," Will huffs on another quiet sigh, his tone carrying something that resembles bitterness again. This is a bitterness that is directed towards Clarice, if even softly.

Will doesn’t need Clarice to explain Hannibal to him. Will knows Hannibal.

Will _used_ to know Hannibal.

Lips pressed into a tight line, he accepts when Clarice goes to refill their glasses, holding out his on forearm extended into the space between them. This is strange. Will can't remember the last time he'd shared a drink with someone.

All pleasantries are quickly shooed away by the suffocating chill of why Clarice is here. Now, it truly settles in. Murders - young women. Missing for days, before turning up again, having been skinned alive. Behind the lids of his eyes, Will allows himself to see it, just for a second… like a photograph catching flame and burning out into nothingness.

"Do you have—” Will clears his throat, blinking away the images, before asking for those that are more concrete. "—do you have pictures? Of the others, I mean."

Clarice swallows thickly and sets her glass down, feeling a sudden churn of guilt in her chest. Leaning off to the side, she reaches for her bag and pulls out a file, but she doesn’t hand it over. Not yet.

“You don’t _have_ to do this, Will.” It’s the first time she uses his name.

Will holds out an empty hand in a quiet demand for the file, but still, Clarice does not hand it over.

“Hannibal doesn’t expect to be behind bars by the time this case is through,” She goes on in warning. “He hasn’t said as much - he never does. But he is very much playing this quid-pro-quo.”

Hannibal’s price for helping with this case would be his freedom. An unspoken pact. And now, Clarice feels the responsibility of giving Will a heads up and a chance to run, _if_ that were to be his choice, even though something within her knows Will would choose to wait. To run away _with_ Hannibal.

A pause and the room goes silent, as if suspended in time.

Will isn’t surprised— of course Hannibal has no intention of being behind bars once this is all said and done. He has no intention of allowing Will to lay to rest without it being by Hannibal's hand. Will can't help the small flicker of excitement that flashes through him at the thought - a soft, burning remnant of a piece of himself from the past that Hannibal had managed to bring to the surface. Some reminder of the darkness he'd always denied having.

No, he doesn't deny the darkest parts of his mind anymore, but there's no reason to care much for it now. It's there and it’s just as numbed-out as the rest of him.

“Yeah, alright,” Will says finally, cutting through the thick quiet. “Give me the file.”

Clarice does, then. She leans over to cautiously offer the manila folder, full of various papers and photographs. Glass set onto the coffee table, Will leans forward enough to take it from her hand, a finger absently tracing over one of hers in the exchange.

The touch sends a jolt of electricity through her, but she remains stoic and shifts back into her seat, glass of whiskey cradled in her lap. Sitting in front of Will is akin to having her soul x-rayed. And her nerves feel just as frayed.

“The photos are graphic...” Clarice begins, watching as Will settles back into his own chair and opens the file. There is no point sugar coating it. He’s seen it all before.

“I think Hannibal is hinting at a familiarity between the killer and his victims. He knows them. Just as I am sure Hannibal knows who the killer is.” she continues.

“He um…The killer,” Clarice’s voice trails off, before she clears her throat. “He starves them until the skin is loose enough. Then, he strangles them and skins them. Sometimes they are still alive. The last few corpses have come decorated with Death’s Head Hawkmoths. The killer is obsessed with… transformation.”

A sharp inhale just-barely sounds through Will's flared nostrils while he sifts through the images and lets Clarice's words sink in, not quite prepared for the feelings that come flooding back to him. The fear and the sweltering hot fevers— all of it sinks in with the knowledge that he would, very soon, be dipping himself into this killer's head to let himself become one with the thoughts there.

"If you have any suspicion at all that Hannibal knows who the killer is, then that’s entirely intentional on his end— as I'm sure you're aware," Will says, ending his words with a pointed and bitter glance in her direction, before his eyes fall once more to take in the picture of a girl lying face-down on an examination table.

 _Diamonds_. Why had the killer cut her skin free in such a shape?

Clarice gives a small, almost grave nod. She’s very aware that Hannibal does not choose to reveal things without reason.

From her bag, she pulls out a small bottle marked, ‘ _evidence_.’ Inside, within clear ethanol, is an insect pupa.

“Here… I thought it might give you a better feel for the case.” She cradles the bottle in her open palm as she extends her hand towards Will in offering.  “It’s quite pretty, really. All things considered.”

Before taking it from her, Will grants another brief moment of eye-contact, and this time, it’s coupled with the small upturn of his mouth. A silence laugh of sorts— a playful wag of his finger without having to physically do so. It’s quickly becoming apparent that Clarice doesn’t play by the rules - at least not when there are lives at stake.

Will leans forward enough to take the bottle from her, taking care not to let their skin touch this time, before he shifts back and directs his eyes down towards the specimen and turns it over in his grasp.

A moth. Or, rather, the chrysalis that one would emerge from.

Will swallows thickly, downing the flashes of images that follow swiftly behind. He is reminded of a gift once left for Hannibal, in a place where he'd known as a young boy— a vision of transformation, swarming in fireflies. Wanting, reaching... _coveting_.

"It's—" Will pauses, brows knitting as he continues to stare down at the bottle in-hand. He has a feeling, somewhere deep in his gut. "It's desperate, without being obviously so. But the desperation is still there."

A soft sigh is exhaled, huffed and short, before Will turns eyes back to the file.

"He disposed of them in lakes, but..." Will stops himself short, trailing off as he reads the information written on paperwork beyond the photos.

Only one of the girls, had been weighted down, before thrown into water. Frederika Bimmel, the third body found. Why only one?

The image paints itself further within Will's mind's eye and it's vivid.

Somewhere dark and damp. Tucked away, where he can remain hidden when he wants to be. Somewhere to keep his victims while he starves them. In the killer's eyes, this isn't about them anyway, this is entirely about himself. About _his_ becoming. His Metamorphosis.

He would be skilled with a sewing machine. He knows just how to cut them and piece them all back together again in a way that befits him - to reflect this beauty that he covets. To leave a stamp on his work and keep it as his own, while these girls are left with a throat full and choking on what _he_ would ultimately be. What he would make himself become.

The chrysalis before the moth emerges.

Tongue pressed to the back of his teeth, Will decides that, for the sake of holding some skin in this game, he won't reveal everything he gathers from the information provided. If Hannibal has taken such a liking to Clarice - and it very much seems that way - that would mean she is a very clever girl. Will would help just enough, before allowing her to pick up the rest of the puzzle on her own.

And, in turn, she would come back. This would not be the last time that he saw her.

"The transformation is key. The chrysalis is a threshold for the caterpillar,” Will begins again. “It tucks itself into a wet darkness, before it emerges with its wings. This killer is not transforming his victims - he doesn't care about them. But still, these murders aren’t thoughtless. They’re selfish."

It’s all he gives to Clarice, finally allowing his eyes to lift and gaze over towards her as he shuts the file in his lap and offers both the folder and the bottle back.

With a silent nod and downcast eyes, she takes both items and shuffles them away. Moving in her chair, Clarice crosses her legs and makes room for one of the dogs who wades over, paws clicking lightly against wooden floors. She reaches down to pat him, long fingers playing through brindle fur.

Starling’s lips part to draw in a slow breath as she glances around the room, looking for words of comfort. She has seen how the images affect Will. The images affect her in the same way.

“Thank you for looking... I know what it does. You never get used to it.” Her words are a husky whisper.

Offering him a weak smile, she stands and pours them both a final glass of whiskey.

Will accepts when his glass is refilled and merely nods, the motion coupled with his own smile in return. A mutual understanding. It’s muted, but it’s there, strong enough for both to feel it.

Drinking from her glass, Clarice then lets it come to rest against her lap as chews her bottom lip, mulling over Will’s words more. He has given her more information in a single sitting than rooms full of profilers had over weeks. Between Hannibal and Will, if she could get them to speak the whole truth, she is sure they could paint a perfect image of this killer.

Starling is sure Will is holding back information, just like she knows Hannibal is. Hannibal and Will are one in the same. And both men would surely try their best to use Starling like a pawn, pushing her back and forth between them.

But Starling is nobody's pawn.

She straightens her spine, drawing back her shoulders as she directs her gaze towards Will, but her winter-green eyes see right through him. Distantly, her heart almost feels like it is breaking over something that is not her own.

“Is there anything you want Hannibal to know. Or, not to know? He will ask. The only way I gain information from him at all is by revealing information about myself. It amuses him.” A warm, pink blush comes forward to stain Clarice’s cheeks.

What had started out as trading information with Hannibal in the pursuit of solving a case and saving girls’ lives, had long since morphed into something far more perverse. And Clarice had welcomed the sordidness with open arms.

She is aware of how dangerous this game with Hannibal is and she isn’t phased when Will gives a quiet ‘ _tsk_ ’ in her direction, mocking her for such naivety. They both know very well how easy it is to be lured into the web that Hannibal weaves. And Clarice is not weak.

She keeps her head high and adds, “But I will keep your secrets, if you ask me to, Mister Graham.”

Will’s brows knit into a furrow once as he mulls over her question. When Hannibal's name is brought into the air again now, the sound is ever-sharp and crisp, much like the shattering of a small porcelain cup over hardwood.

"If he asks," Will begins, voice terse, “tell him I’m doing well.”

He knows that Hannibal will ask. And this is Will’s request that Clarice not reveal too much— asking for a favor without openly asking. He doesn't want Hannibal to know the true nature of himself now. Of the man who holes himself in his home to sit alone and drink his nights away.

With another nod of understanding, Clarice runs a nervous hand down the side of her throat. She can’t pinpoint why, but a heavy and dizzy feeling hums under her skin.

Jealousy. And she can’t decipher where that jealousy comes from.

Is she jealous that she’s not Will Graham? That she isn’t enough for Hannibal? That she is, ultimately, just another pawn in Hannibal’s game? That she no longer has Hannibal all to herself? That she can’t seem to solve this case all on her own? That Jack has left her all on her own - with Hannibal, and with this case?

“Hannibal is the kind of man who, once he has taken an interest in playing with you, only allows you two kinds of ends. Neither of us have met ours yet.” The words slip over Clarice’s tongue before she can even process them herself.

Until now, she hasn’t been able to fully realize the truth of what kind of danger she would be in, when all is said and done. Her gaze lifts and is met with Will’s, his eyes no longer avoiding, but rather, locked onto Clarice now as he comes to his own quiet realization.

Will is greeted with the very harsh reality that he may not be the only shiny toy in Hannibal's world anymore. His connection with the cannibal had been through their mutual aloneness - in being just alike, the two of them. Now, Hannibal is not so alone anymore, it appears.

It makes the ache of Will's isolation stab itself that much deeper. And yes, the ache for Hannibal stabs all the same, though Will would never say it aloud now.

At some point, it will likely come down to a choice between the two of them and it’s very likely that Hannibal would try to make one of them wield the killing blow against the other. Because, wouldn’t _that_ be a fun game?

Resentment is building. Clarice looks at Will and sees her own future reflected back at her.

Will feels a flash of anger and it isn’t an emotion directed solely towards Clarice, but towards Hannibal as well. Will is completely aware that Hannibal had sent Clarice with intentions of waving her in front of his nose. Hannibal had fully intended on this jealousy to bloom, one way or another. For this fact alone, Will works to channel all of his anger to the cannibal instead.

And Clarice swallows hard against her feeling of resentment. She has no reason to fear, dislike, or resent Will. Not yet. Indeed, there is something about his gruffness and isolation she can relate to. She knows that she cannot allow her inner turmoil to sway her from the reason she’d come here to begin with - Will’s help would be extremely valuable to this case.

Clarice places her glass down on the table and stands up, holding herself there for a pause, before brushing hands down her jeans and finally breaking the silence as she prepares to go.

“May I come again if I need you? I promise, next time it will be chocolates and flowers… no guns.” She tries to lighten the weight in her chest with joke, but fails, simply feeling sad and exhausted.

"No need - I'm not much a fan of chocolate,” Will says with a sigh exhaled. “Or flowers, for that matter. But you're welcome to come back, should you need to.”

Satisfied, Clarice offers, “Thank you. Hopefully I won’t have to bother you again.”

She knows how close they are to wrapping this case up and, thanks to Will, there is hope. She can feel it in her bones. It’s as if a future victory is pressing in on her with a comforting golden light, before the day of fortune inevitably dawns.

Starling refuses let this girl die. But, with one victory, will soon come another threat…

Hannibal’s escape.

When Will stands as well, his empty glass is set aside with a gentle ‘ _clink_ ’ against the table, before he leads the way to the front door. Clarice is quick to scoop up her bag and follow, rubbing a hand over her forehead as she tries to smooth out the frown.

“If you have a number you’d like to give me, I can call in advance?” she presses. “Or, I could just call, instead of intruding at all.”

Now is when the truest moment of deliberation is clear in Will’s expression.

A thought emerges and brews itself, hot and bubbling in the cup of his skull. He turns to a desk against the nearest wall, sifting through a mess of papers and various other things that had been piled there, before he finds a pen. Numbers are written onto the corner of a sheet of printing paper, before it's torn away and Will offers it over to Clarice between the hold of his index and middle finger.

His personal cell phone number.

"Call me if you have anything else I might be able to help you with.”

Clarice takes it and tucks it into the pocket of her jeans, but is interrupted, before she can say anything to thank him.

“Oh, and...” Will takes a step closer, shortening the distance between them, "give the number to Hannibal. Tell him to give me a call, should the mood ever strike him."

Clarice knows how easy it would be for things to get just as murderously and erotically tangled with Will as they currently are with herself and Hannibal. Especially seeing as Will has a mind that possesses every ability to gut Clarice like a fish and pull her insides out, if only just to play with them, before stuffing them back in all wrong, leaving her soul restless and needy.

Her blush deepens as they both hover by the door, Will nearly close enough to reach out and touch her. With a deep breath, she presses herself back against the wall— anything to put some space between the strange currencies that pass between them. These are currencies she cannot seem to read.

Anger? Jealousy? Resentment?

Something more?

“Yes, Sir.” Clarice offers earnestly, almost out of instinct from the academy, before swallowing a thick bout of shame and jealousy.

She just isn’t sure who - or what - she might be jealous of.

Regardless, she would give Hannibal the phone number, just as requested.

Clarice pulls out a card of her own. “My personal phone number is on the back, should you feel inclined... or if you think of anything more.”

While it is clear that Will knows more than he’s currently letting on, Clarice is also inviting him to call as a friend, should he feel the need. At least that’s what she tells herself. Either way, Will takes it with an expression of thanks written over his features, before stepping aside enough to open the front door.

Both are greeted with the sharpness of the night air and Clarice wraps her coat tight around her middle, before glancing back to Will one last time and turning to walk out to her car, careful not to slip on any ice, or cracks in the path. The sound of the front door closing behind her shuts Clarice out into the rest of the world, sending her on her way home.

And Will knows, just as well, this wouldn’t be his only encounter with Clarice Starling.


End file.
